‘Le Nadia’ opens its doors as first venue in Montreal devoted to women’s sports

There’s a new sports bar in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in Montreal that comes with a unique concept: celebrating women’s sports.

Spearheaded by Catherine D. Lapointe and Caroline Côté, who shared the dream of creating a more equitable sporting world, Le Nadia offers a unifying space where fans of women’s sports can partake in festive events and watch the broadcasting of professional competitions.

“There are many many places where you can watch men’s sports and it’s great we love those places, but we kind of needed one where we could watch women’s sports as well,” said Côté when explaining what motivated the project in the first place.

“There was a point where Caroline and I, we both watched women’s sports and we were looking for a place to watch a Victoire game, and the question was where? — There was no answer at the moment,” added Lapointe.

Deciding they’d be the one with the answer, the two women embarked on the journey of opening Le Nadia together – a journey that took more than a year before the official opening on Dec. 4.

Since then, Lapointe says they’ve had nothing but positive feedback coming in droves through texts on her phone and social media accounts.

“I think for the need of the place, that’s evidence,” exclaimed Lapointe about the various messages indicating people had been waiting for such a sports bar.

And to continue celebrating the idea of giving women the place they finally deserve in sports, they even named the bar in honour of Olympic legend Nadia Comăneci who scored a perfect 10.0 at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

“Catherine used to do gymnastics before so she was like an icon in her family, and I think like the collective memory of 1976 is really strong in what she represents,” said Côté.

And with what the two longtime friends are calling a goal to create an inclusive setting for families, Le Nadia is purposefully designed to avoid the usual sports bar environment.

“We want people to just be there and talk about subjects with a smooth atmosphere, it’s less loud than what we know as a sports bar, even like what we’re surrounded with — the decor, the light and what we choose for screens are not as intense as regular screens too,” said Lapointe as she pointed at the decor around the establishment.

“We wanted it to be accessible, inclusive, safe and fun as well,” added Côté.

With an incredible first step in helping propagate viewership for women’s sports, the girls both agree on a common goal, and that’s for Le Nadia to have enough of an impact within the city, that the need for a separate sports bar eventually becomes obsolete.

“I’m hoping that Le Nadia is going to be the first step of a path where at some point it’s going to be just normal to have that kind of establishment, so that female sports bars or male sports bars won’t be different things, just sports,” exclaimed Lapointe with a smile.